Angry Embarrassment

The Question of the Labour Congress

Written: Written in April 1907
Published:
Published in 1907 in the collection Questions of Tactics, Second Issue. Novaya Duma Publishers, St. Petersburg. Signed: N. Lenin.
Published according to the text in the collection.
Source:Lenin
Collected Works,
Foreign Languages Publishing House,
1962,
Moscow,
Volume 12,
pages 320-332.
Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2004).
You may freely copy, distribute,
display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
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Thesecond part (B) of the resolution under
examination[1]
deals with the question of the labour congress.

TheMensheviks have written so much and said so much on this question that it
would not be a bad thing to get a resolution that really summed up matters and
removed all misunderstanding and differences in explaining the idea, a
resolution that gave a clear and definite Party directive. Suffice it to say
that the latest list of Russian literature on the labour congress (the
above-mentioned pamphlet The All-Russian Labour Congress) names
fifteen pamphlets and journals that treat the subject in a Menshevik light.

Letus see what this “discussion” has yielded.

PointOne of the preamble:

“Massworkers’ organisations, coming into being and growing on the soil
only of trade union, local [?] and group [?] needs and requirements in general
[?], if not under the influence of proletarian Social-Democratic parties or
organisations, have, when left to themselves, a direct tendency to narrow the
mental and political horizons of the working-class masses to the narrow sphere
of trade and, in general, of the particular interests and day-to-day
requirements of separate strata or groups of the proletariat.”

Whatmass organisations can grow on the soil of group needs,
the Lord alone knows. By group, something small is always meant, something
diametrically opposed to the mass. The authors of the resolution string words
together without thinking of concrete, definite content.

Whatthen does this mean—mass organisations on the soil of local
needs? What sort of organisation the authors have in mind is again not clear. If
they are talking about such organisations as consumers societies, co-operatives,
etc., their distinctive feature is certainly not their local
character. The Mensheviks’ love of platitudinous phrases, their evasion of the
concrete exposition of a question, is a purely intellectualist
trait. It is at root alien to the proletariat, and harmful from the standpoint
of the proletariat.

Intheir literal meaning the words “mass workers’ organisations
on the soil of local needs and requirements” include Soviets
of Workers’ Deputies. This is a type of mass workers’ organisation well
known in Russia in a revolutionary epoch. We may say in all truth that an
article on the labour congress, and on mass working-class organisations in
general, rarely manages without mention of that type of organisation. As if
ridiculing the demand for a precise and concrete ex position of definite ideas
and slogans, the resolution does not say a word about Soviets of
Workers’ Deputies, not a word about Soviets of Workers’ Delegates, etc.

Butwhat we are being offered is some sort of incomplete criticism of
some sort of local mass organisations, criticism that does not touch on
the question of their positive significance, the conditions under
which they function, etc.

Furthermore,no matter how you may correct, piece by piece, this monstrously
clumsy first point of the preamble, there will still remain the general,
fundamental error. Not only trade union, not only local, not only group, but
also mass political organisations that are not local “have a
tendency to narrow the political horizon of the workers”, if they are not
“under the influence of proletarian Social-Democratic parties”.

Itwas the authors’ idea that the first point of the preamble should explain the
transition to “the all-Russian labour congress”; local, trade union
and other organisations, they wanted to say, narrow the horizon, but
now we have the all-Russian labour congress, etc. The highly-respected
“writers and Mensheviks engaged in practical work” have, however,
lost all touch with logic, because the influence of Social-Democracy, or the
absence of such influence, is possible in both cases! Instead of a
comparison we get confusion....

PointTwo of the preamble:

“Theidea of convening an all-Russian labour congress for the purpose of
initiating the political association of Russian workers, an idea that has met
with sympathy in working-class circles, will introduce an element of unity into
the organisational activities of the working-class masses, and will bring into
the foreground of their field of vision the common interests of the working
class and its tasks in the present Russian revolution.”

Inthe first place, is it true that the notorious “idea” has met
with sympathy in working-class circles? Point Five of the preamble to the same
resolution says that “the urge of the workers themselves towards its [the
labour congress] convocation has not yet been manifested by any serious
practical steps on their part by way of preparation for it”.

Herethe truth has slipped out. We have a heap of intellectualist
writings about the labour congress, and no serious practical steps on the part
of the workers themselves. The attempt to blame this intellectualist
invention on to the workers is a failure.

Letus go on. What is the labour congress? Its aim is to “initiate the
political association of Russian workers”.

Andso the R.S.D.L.P. has not initiated such an association, nor did the Rostov
demonstration of 1902, or the October strikes of 1903, or January 9,1905, or the
October strike in 1905 initiate it! Up to now we have had some history, now we
have none! Association has only been “initiated” by Axelrod &
Co. having thought up a labour congress. Can you beat that?

Whatis meant by a “political” association of the workers?
If the authors have not invented some new terminology specially for the present
resolution, it means association around a definite political programme and
tactics. Around which specifically? Surely our intellectuals must know that
all over the world there have been political associations of the
workers under the banner of bourgeois politics. Perhaps this does not
apply to Holy Russia? Perhaps in Holy Russia any political association of
workers is automatically a Social-Democratic association?

Thepoor authors of the resolution are floundering so helplessly because they
have not dared say straight out what
idea really underlies the labour congress, an idea that has long been postulated
by its more sincere or younger and more hot-headed champions. The idea is that
the labour congress is to be a non-party labour congress. Would it,
after all, have been worth while talking about a party labour
congress?

OurMensheviks, however, were afraid to tell the truth openly and
forthrightly—“a non-party, political association of workers...”.

Theend of this point reads: the idea of calling the congress “will
introduce an element of unity into the organisational activities of the
working-class masses, and will bring into the foreground of their field of
vision the common interests of the working class and its tasks...". First
organisational activities and then tasks, i.e., programme and tactics!
Don’t you think you should argue the other way round, comrades
“publicists and Mensheviks engaged in practical work”? Think it
over—can you unify organisational activities if there is no
unified conception of the interests and tasks of the class? When you
have thought it over, you will see that you cannot.

Differentparties have a different understanding of the common
interests of the working class and its tasks in the present revolution. Even in
the single R.S.D.L.P. these tasks are differently understood by the Mensheviks,
by Trotsky’s supporters, and by the Bolsheviks. Think it over, comrades:
how can these differences not affect the labour congress? how can they
not come out there? how can they not be complicated by differences
with the anarchists, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trudoviks, etc., etc.? Can the
“idea of convening a labour congress” or its convocation
eliminate those differences?

Andso the promise made by the authors of the resolution that “the idea of
convening a labour congress will introduce an element of unity,
etc.” is either the innocent dreaming of a very young intellectual who is
carried away by the latest book he has read, or else demagogy, i.e., the luring
of the masses by promises that cannot be fulfilled.

Youare wrong, comrades. It is the real struggle that unites. It is the
development of parties, their continued struggle inside parliament and outside
of it that unites, it is the general
strike, etc., that unites. But the experiment of convening a non-party
congress will not introduce any real unity, or establish uniformity in the
understanding of “interests and tasks”.

Itcan, of course, be said that the struggle of different parties at the labour
congress would lead to a wider field of action for the Social-Democrats and to
their victory. If that is the way you look at the labour congress, you should
say so straight out, and not promise t.he milk and honey of “an element of
unity”. If you do not say this in straight forward fashion, you run the
risk of workers, misled and blinded by promises, coming to the congress for
the unification of politics and actually finding gigantic,
irreconcilable differences in politics, finding that the immediate
unity of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Social-Democrats, etc., s
impossible, and then going away disappointed, going away
cursing the intellectuals who have deceived them, cursing “politics”
in general, cursing socialism in general. The inevitable outcome of such
disappointment will be the cry, “Down with politics! Down with socialism!
They disunite and do not unite the workers!” Some sort of primitive forms
of pure trade-unionism or naive syndicalism will gain strength from this.

Social-Democracy,of course, will in the end overcome everything; it
will withstand all tests, and will unite all workers. Is that, however, an
argument in favour of a policy of adventurous risk?

PointThree of the preamble:

“Byintroducing into the disunited organisational attempts of the socially
active [what loud-sounding words they use!] masses of the proletariat such a
unifying concrete aim as the convention of a general labour congress
[no longer
an all-Russian but a general congress! i.e., general party or non-party?
Don’t be afraid, comrades!], propaganda and agitation in favour of the
convention will, in its turn, give a strong impetus to the urge of those strata
towards self organisation [i.e., that means without the influence of
Social-Democracy, doesn’t it? otherwise it would not be
self-organisation], and will increase their activity in that direction.”

Thatis known as running from Pontius to Pilate. Point Two: the labour congress
will introduce an element of unity. Point Three: unity for the concrete aim of a
labour congress will give an impetus to self-organisation. What is this
self-organisation for? For the labour congress. What is the labour congress for?
For
self-organisation. What is this super-literary resolution against the rule of
the intelligentsia for? For the self-satisfaction of the intelligentsia.

PointFour:

“Inview of the growing popularity of the idea of the labour congress in
working-class circles, a passive and, in particular, a hostile attitude on the
part of parties
[?? a misprint? the Social-Democratic Party?] towards attempts
to put it into effect would open up the widest vistas for unprincipled
adventurers to lead the workers onto a false path, and would force them into the
embraces of demagogues.

Anexceptionally irate point. Its content speaks of angry embarrassment. They
themselves are not certain whom they should attack, so they are directing their
fire against their own ranks.

Itake the fifth, the latest issue of
Otgoloski.[3] E. Charsky writes against Y. Larin: Y. Larin
“has suddenly discovered an organisational panacea ... an unexpected
recipe” ...
“a muddle”....
“Y. Larin does not notice that he is proposing,
by a ’conscious’ act, to perpetuate the sporadic nature of the revolution, which
is directly hostile to the cause of the class unification of the working
masses. And it is in the interests of the labour congress that all this is
being done...”.
“In any case, we have before us very favourable soil for all sorts of
’land demagogy’.... The conclusion of Comrade Larin’s confused thinking.”

Thatwould seem to be enough. Larin is accused by the Mensheviks of
both demagogy and adventurism, since “recipe”,
“panacea” and similar compliments denote precisely adventurism.

Sothey were aiming at one, and hit another. Verily, his own received him
not. And please note further, that if the authors of the resolution qualify
Larin as adventurist and demagogue, El & Co. go further than
Larin. El writes frankly
(All-Russian Labour Congress, Moscow, 1907) that there are two
tendencies on the labour congress question, and that they,
the Moscow Mensheviks, agree neither with the St. Petersburg Mensheviks
(p. 10) nor with Larin. The St. Petersburg Mensheviks want a congress only
of the working-class vanguard, and that is simply “a variation of a
party congress” (pp. 10-11). In St. Petersburg, Larin “is
considered a heretic and conniver” (p. 10). Larin wants an
“all-Russian labour party”. The Moscow Mensheviks want an
all-Russian workers union.

Wemay well ask: if Larin has received such “handling” from
Otgoloski, how are we to qualify El, Ahmet Ts., Arkhangelsky, Solomin
& Co.? It turns out that both Larin and the Moscow Mensheviks come under the
irate fourth point!

Butif you are angry, comrades, and your resolution condemns the
“false path”, it is at least your duty to show where the
true path lies. Otherwise your angry embarrassment will become quite
ridiculous. However, after rejecting both the “all-Russian workers’
union” and “the all-Russian labour party” you do not say a
single word about the practical purposes for which you want a
labour congress!

Demagoguesand adventurers are capable of convening a labour congress for false
purposes. Therefore we Social-Democrats must show a sympathetic
attitude towards the labour congress, setting that congress no aims at
all....
In all truth, that Menshevik resolution is a real collection of all
manner of incongruities.

PointFive:

“onthe other hand, questions of the tasks of the labour congress, and of
ways and means of preparing it, are still little explained in Social-Democratic
circles [but they have been explained sufficiently for Larin and the Moscow
Mensheviks to have indicated clearly the tasks of the congress and the
ways and means. It’s no use hiding your head under your wing, comrades from
St. Petersburg. That won’t make the ducklings hatched by Axelrod come out
of the puddle on to dry land!], that the urge of the workers themselves towards
its convocation has not yet been manifested by any serious practical steps on
their part by way of preparation for it, and that the congress will only
be a real and not a
sham expression of the collective will of the politically conscious strata of
the proletariat and serve the cause of their class unity in the event of its
convocation being prepared by their own independent organisational activity
with the increased planned co-operation of the Party.”

Thatis called descending from the sublime to the ridiculous. Larin and the
young Moscow Mensheviks were just beginning to display “independent
activity” when the St. Petersburg Mensheviks shouted: Hold on! You are not
yet the one who expresses the collective will! You have not yet done enough
explaining! The convocation of the (non-party) congress has still not
been prepared by greater co-operation from the Party!

PoorComrades El, Ahmet Ts. & Co.! They were getting along so well, with
such attractive youthful verve; they published two whole collections of articles
on the labour congress, analysed the problem from all angles, explained its
“general-political” and its organisational significance, the
attitude to the Duma, the attitude to the Party, and the attitude to the
“petty-bourgeois elemental force”— when suddenly Axelrod’s
help brought such a change about!

Weare afraid that if, until now, Larin alone revolted (remember: “heretic
and conniver”) against hidebound
Menshevism,[2]
the revolt will now develop into an insurrection.... Axelrod promised
independent action and a genuinely labour congress against the rule of the
intelligentsia—and now the St. Petersburg publicists are taking decisions
and explaining that this independent action must be understood as being
permitted by that selfsame much maligned “intellectualist” party!

* * *

Itis not to be wondered at that the conclusions drawn from such a preamble
should be of the strangest:

“Proceedingfrom all these premises, the R.S.D.L.P. congress proposes to
workers and intellectuals [really? how kind that is on the part of the fighters
against “domination” by the intelligentsia!] to engage [but not in
the
way Larin and Ahmet did!] in an all-round discussion of questions relating to
the programme and tasks of the labour congress, to propaganda, agitational
and organisational work for its preparation, and to ways and means of
convening it.

“TheParty congress at the same time considers it the duty of Party
institutions to render every support to propaganda, agitational and
organisational attempts at pre paring the labour congress; it considers hostile
agitation against such attempts to be impermissible in principle, since such
hostility strives to preserve and strengthen the obsolete Party regime in
Russian Social-Democracy that is no longer compatible with the present level of
development, the demands of the proletarian elements grouped inside and around
the Party, and the demands of the revolution.”

Whatcan you call that if not angry embarrassment? What can you do but laugh at
such a resolution?

TheParty congress forbids the defence of the obsolete Party regime,
which regime the congress itself confirms!

TheParty congress does not propose any reform of the obsolete regime,
it even postpones the notorious “labour congress” (for the
purpose of an inconceivable “political association”) and at the same
time makes it a duty to support “attempts”!

Thisis genuine, impotent, intellectualist grumbling; I am not satisfied with
the present obsolete Party regime; I do not want to preserve and strengthen it!
Excellent. You don’t want to preserve it, so propose definite changes and
we shall willingly discuss them. Please be kind enough to say what sort of
labour congress you think desirable. This has not yet been made clear—the
urge has not been manifested—the convocation has not been prepared. We
must get down to a discussion. Excellent. It really is not worth while
writing resolutions about “getting down to a discussion”,
my dear comrades, since we have already been discussing for too long a
time. But a workers’ party is not a club for the exercise of intellectualist
“discussions”—it is a fighting proletarian
organisation. Discussions are all right in their way, but we have to live and
act. In which sort of party organisation is it permitted to live and
act? in the old kind? Don’t you dare defend the former obsolete
organisation; don’t you dare preserve and strengthen it! Excellent, etc.

Itis a tale without an end. The intellectual is peeved and angry at his own
irresoluteness, his own embarrassment.

Suchis “hidebound Menshevism’s” last word.

* * *

Whilewandering all round it, the Menshevik publicists have safely avoided the
issue that has become urgent enough to be raised in practice and in
literature—an independent Social-Democratic workers’ party, or its
replacement by (variant: its subordination to) a non-party political
organisation of the proletariat?

OurBolshevik resolution poses the question openly and gives a direct
and definite answer to it. It is useless to evade the issue, no matter whether
you do so because of embarrassment or because of well-meaning
“reconciliation”. It is useless to evade the issue because the
substitution has been proposed, and work to effect that
substitution is going on. The intellectualist Menshevik hens have hatched
out ducklings. The ducklings have swum away. The hens must
choose—on water or on land? The answer they have given (that answer could
be accurately translated as: neither on water nor on land but in the
mud) is no answer; it is postponement, procrastination.

Axelrodcould not hold Larin back. Larin could not hold back El, Ahmet Ts. &
Co. This latter company cannot hold back the anarcho-syndicalists.

Onwater or on land, gentlemen?

Wewant to keep on dry land. We can prophesy for you, that the greater the zeal,
the greater your determination in crawling through the mud, the sooner will you
return to dry land.

“Toextend and strengthen the influence of the Social-Democratic party
among the broad masses of the proletariat” we do not propose replacing
Social-Democracy by “a labour party” of the non-partisan type, or
“an all-Russian workers’ union” that is above all parties, or a
labour congress for unknown aims, but something simple and modest, something to
which all project-mongering is alien—“efforts must be
increased, on the one hand, to organise trade unions and conduct
Social-Democratic propaganda and agitation within them, and, on the other
hand, to draw still larger sections of the working class into the
activities of all types of Party organisations” (the final point of
the Bolshevik resolution).

Thishas become too “obsolete”, too boring, for our blasé
intellectuals. Let them get on with their projects; we shall go with the
workers, even at the “labour congress” (if it is held), and will
show them in practice the correctness of our forecasts and—and
then we shall return with the disappointed workers (or rather those who have
become disappointed in certain intellectualist leaders) to
“obsolete” work in trade unions and in Party organisations of all
types.

* * *

Howis this “labour congress” tendency in our Party to be explained?
Here we can only briefly mention three reasons that are, in our opinion,
fundamental:
(1) intellectualist-philistine weariness with the revolution;
(2) a peculiarity of Russian Social-Democratic opportunism that is developing
historically towards subordinating the “purely working- class”
movement to the influence of the bourgeoisie;
(3) the undigested traditions of the October revolution in Russia.

RePoint One. Some of the labour congress champions reveal
weariness with the revolution, and a desire, at all costs, to legalise the Party
and discard anything like a republic, the dictatorship of the proletariat and so
on. A legal labour congress is a convenient means of attaining this. Hence (and
also to some extent for the second reason) the sympathy of the Popular
Socialists, the Bez Zaglaviya Bernsteinians (from Tovarishch,
etc.) and the Cadets for such a congress.

RePoint Two. Take the first historical form adopted by Russian
Social-Democratic opportunism. The beginning of a mass working-class movement
(the second half of the nineties of the last century) gave rise to this
opportunism in the shape of Economism and Struvism. At that
time, Plekhanov and Axelrod and all the old Iskra supporters
explained the connection between them time and again. The famous Credo
by Prokopovich and Kuskova (1899-1900) expressed
this connection very clearly—let the intelligentsia and the liberals
conduct the political struggle, and the workers the economic struggle. The
political working-class party is an invention of the revolutionary intellectual.

Inthis classic Credo there is a clear expression of the historical,
class meaning of the intellectualist infatuation with a “purely
working-class” movement. Its meaning is the subordination of the working
class (for the sake of “purely working-class” tasks) to
bourgeois politics and bourgeois ideology. This
“infatuation” of the intellectuals expressed the capitalist tendency
to subordinate immature workers to the liberals.

Today,at a higher stage of development, we see the same thing
again. Blocs with the Cadets, in general, the policy of supporting the
Cadets, and a non-party labour congress are two sides of the same medal,
connected in the same way as liberalism and the purely working-class movement
are connected in the Credo. In effect, the non-party labour
congress
expresses the same capitalist tendency to weaken the class independence
of the proletariat and subordinate that class to the bourgeoisie. This
tendency is clearly displayed in the plans to replace Social-Democracy with a
non-party workers’ organisation, or its subordination to the
latter.

Hencethe sympathy of the Popular Socialists, the Bez Zaglaviya group,
the Socialist-Revolutionaries and others, for the idea of a “labour
congress

RePoint Three. The Russian bourgeois revolution has created a specific
type of mass organisation of the proletariat that does not resemble the usual
European organisations (trade unions or Social-Democratic parties). These
organisations are the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies.

Byschematically developing similar institutions into a system (as Trotsky has
done), or sympathising in general with the revolutionary enthusiasm of the
proletariat and being infatuated with the “fashionable” phrase
“revolutionary syndicalism” (as some Moscow supporters of the
labour congress are), it is easy to approach the idea of a labour congress in
the revolutionary and not in the opportunist way.

That,however, is an uncritical attitude to great and glorious revolutionary
traditions.

TheSoviets of Workers’ Deputies and similar institutions were
actually organs of the insurrection. Their strength and their
success depended entirely on the strength and success of the
insurrection. Only when the insurrection developed, was their inception no
mere bagatelle, but a great exploit of the proletariat. In the event of a
new upsurge of the struggle, in the event of its transition to that
phase, such institutions, of course, are inevitable and
desirable. But their historical development must not consist in a schematic
development of local Soviets of Workers’ Deputies up to an all-Russian
labour congress, but in the conversion of embryonic organs of revolutionary
power (for the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies were such) into central organs
of victorious revolutionary power, into a revolutionary provisional
government. Soviets of Workers’ Deputies and their unification are essential
for the victory of the insurrection. A victorious insurrection will
inevitably create other kinds of organs.

* * *

RussianSocial-Democracy, of course, should not for swear non-participation in a
labour congress because the revolution is developing in a highly zigzag fashion
and may produce the most varied and unusual situations. It is, however, one
thing to study attentively the conditions of the revolution as it ebbs and flows
and to attempt to use those conditions, and quite another to engage in confused
or anti-Social-Democratic project-mongering.

Notes

[1]
See the analysis of the first part in Nashe Ekho,
No. 5.[4] (See pp. 316-19 of this volume.—Ed.)—Lenin

[4]Nashe Ekho (Our Echo)—a Bolshevik legal daily newspaper
published in St. Petersburg from March 25 to April 10 (April 7 to 23),
1907. The newspaper was edited by Lenin and was a continuation of
Novy Luch, which had been suppressed on February 27 (March 12),
1907. There were articles by Lenin in almost every issue. Among other
contributors were V. V. Vorovsky and M. S. Olminsky. In all, fourteen issues of
the paper appeared. On April 9 (22), 1907, the City Governor of St. Petersburg,
on the basis of the state-of-emergency laws, prohibited its publication. The
fourteenth number, the last, appeared after the ban.

[3]Otgoloski (Echoes)—Menshevik pamphlets
(collections of articles) published in St. Petersburg in 1907.